My HGTV Tiny House Experience!

Maybe you remember when I shared last May about the opportunity I had to help decorate a house for HGTV’s Tiny House Hunters.  If not, no worries.  It’s been so long that I barely remember!  After the shoot took place we were under orders not to share any pictures until the show aired.  Life became unpredictably full, the airing came and went,  and I pushed it to the recesses of my mind until now, when I was trying to decide what to post next.

So here, at long last, The BIG Reveal! 

Get comfortable (there are a lot of pictures) and let’s have a looksee at this Tiny House located in a small lakeside community in Townville, South Carolina.

After the pics I’ll share details of how this opportunity came to be, insider highlights of decorating day, and what the experience was like as a whole.  

Let’s go!

Come on in to this adorable 214 square foot Tiny House.

When you enter the front door the couch is the first thing you’ll see.

In this shot from above you can see that the house is very narrow, 20′ long x 8′ wide, so when you open the door you can literally take one step, turn around, and sit down on the couch!

As we walk through each space in this house, much of what you’ll see are items we brought in to stage for the camera.  Y’all knew that all of these home shows are professionally staged right?  This new owner has a great sense of style though so you’ll also see many of her favorite things.

Note: Stay ALERT and you’ll  recognize quite a few items we borrowed from MY home!

The home owner loves blues and greens and she chose these light and airy curtains for the living room area.  Good choice as they allow plenty of light to filter into this small space.

The owner also chose this pretty rug that fit in the  space with no room to spare!  In fact, the door will need some minor adjustments to keep from having to roll the rug up every time the door is opened. 😉

Looking to the right when you walk in the door is the master bedroom.

This pretty little bedside cabinet is the only storage in the room.  Can you imagine?

In a corner at the end of the bed we placed a narrow full length mirror.  This gives the illusion of more space as well as giving the owner a place to primp in the morning.  We gals all need a primping place don’t we?

The mattresses didn’t make it in time for the shoot so moving boxes were used to create a “bed.”  A handy little staging secret. 😉

Moving right along, if you were to climb up into the loft above the master bedroom like this, . . .

. . . this is the view you would have of the living room and kitchen below.

This picture will give you an idea of how close these quarters are.  The end of the couch has a small garden stool which sits right next to the refrigerator.

We placed a basket in the small space next to the kitchen cabinets.  Space where perhaps a small table might work.

Yep, it’s TINY!

The kitchen has an apartment-sized refrigerator with a microwave placed on top.

The space to the left of the refrigerator will eventually have a stove but for the shoot we staged the area with this storage cart.

On the other side of the kitchen is the sink and a tiny bit more storage.

The counter tops are wood and the sink hammered copper.

The door at the back of the kitchen opens into the bathroom.

Come on in.  There is room for at least two of us. 

All the way back and on the left is the shower . . .

. . . and directly in front of that the toilet bowl.

Across from the toilet is the bathroom vanity . . .

. . . which the owner had made from this beautiful antique dresser.

This pretty bathroom sink was made by one of her friends.

To the left of the sink is a bit of space for storage.

A combo washer/dryer will eventually take the space that we staged with a laundry hamper. Where will the dirty clothes go?  No room!  A good motivator to stay on top of the laundry.

One heavy wooden ladder is used to access both upper bedrooms.

The ladder hooks onto a bar like this one and can be easily removed when access to the rooms isn’t needed.

This Tiny House has two teenagers!  This is the girls room.

The kids chose from a few of their most beloved possessions to add to the staging of their new rooms.

There are no closets in the house but the loft areas have a nice amount of floor space.  We brought trunks into each of the kid’s rooms to use as storage.

Over to the other side of the house, above the master, is the other bedroom.

This is the boy’s room.

Again, decorated with some of his favorite things.

The ceilings in the Tiny house are high which helps gives the illusion of space and also helps with air flow. 

Here you can see that there are windows high up in the walls bringing light into the space below.

 And a pretty leaded glass window in the door.  That my friends is the entire interior of this Tiny House!Stepping outside once more . . .

. . . you’ll see that we created a small outdoor living space.  Outdoor spaces are a necessity for Tiny Houses and luckily this is South Carolina where the outdoors can be enjoyed the majority of the year.

Thank you so much for your patience with ALL THESE PICTURES!  I took a whole lot more so consider yourself lucky that I edited back a few times.

To wrap it up here are a few details about my Tiny House experience:

1.  How did I get the opportunity to share in this Tiny House decorating experience?  Sometimes it is all about who you know.   I happen to have this amazing friend named Leslie of Goodbye House, Hello Home, who is a professional Stager and Decorator in Greenville, S. C.   She was called by HGTV and she then called on me to come along for the ride. 
2. How long did it take to decorate?  Well . . . we were told we would be given access to the Tiny House by 7:00 p.m. and would have until 8:00 a.m. the next morning to finish decorating.  But because the taping of the show went WAY overtime we weren’t allowed in until almost 9:00 p.m.  Not only that, but since the owner was tied up with taping for two days and nights back-to-back she had no time to get to her storage (which was quite far from the new home’s location) to get several items we planned on using to stage the home.  Like a mattress??? I was so thankful that we loaded Leslie’s SUV and mine with more items from home than we thought we’d ever have need for!
3. Highlights of this experience: Since time was cut short for us to pull it all together (and we had no intention of staying until our allotted 8:00 a.m. exit time) we worked as fast as we could (in the heat, with no air, and no desire to open the doors to the mosquitos).  When we got as much done as we could, we spent a fair amount of time waiting for the few final items that the owner really wanted in the home to arrive.  During our wait time we met some of the neighbors, who were MOST curious about the Tiny House. One neighbor took us on a wild golf cart ride to tour an old bus that he is in the process of remodeling to live in; we had an insightful visit with the folks who live down the street on Beer Belly Boulevard; we were invited to the community bonfire (think par-TAY!) on the beach. We passed on that though because we’d had enough of careening through the neighborhood on a golf cart, and by that point we were more than ready to get back to waiting 😉
4. Final thoughts: We finished up and headed home exhausted by 2:00 a.m.  Worth doing?  Yes, for the experience.  Would I do it again?  Hmmm . . . since I’m not really looking for HGTV fame, I’d have to think about it long and hard.  We had a lot of laughs though and will have something to talk about for years to come.

So what do you think?  Do you feel like you want to hook this itty, bitty house right up to your trailer hitch and find the perfect location to settle in?  Could you do it?  Some of the people interviewed for the show talk about wanting to forego spending all their money on “possessions,” in favor of adventure.   What do you think about that?   Some just want to be able to settle wherever they choose for a time and have the freedom to pick up and move on when the mood hits.  Would that lifestyle work for you?  How comfortable do you think it would be to entertain in a space this size?  Cozy for sure!  While this lifestyle may not be for everybody (like me) there are many who are smitten with the idea.  I’d love to hear your thoughts on Tiny Living.

Thanks for taking time to join with me in my Tiny House adventure.

Blessings,

I’ve been known to link up to the following great parties!!!

Sunday:

TheDIYShowoff, LifeOnLakeshoreDrive, SilverPenniesSundays, RusticAndRefined, Spiritual Sundays,GiveMeGrace

Monday:

IShouldBeMoppingTheFloor, TheDedicatedHouse, Dwellings, ProjectInspired,  InspireMeMonday,BetweenNapsOnThePorch, CelebrateYourStory, Making Your Home Sing Mondays, What Joy is Mine/Monday Musings, Darling Downs Diaries, The Art of Homemaking, SmallWonder, MomentsOfHope,Glimpses, SittingAmongFriends

Tuesday:

TalkOfTheTown, HomeStoriesAtoZ, AStrollThruLife, CoastalCharm, CedarHillFarmhouse,TuesdaysAtOurHome, TheWinthropChronicles,  Rich Faith Rising Unite Linky, Testimony Tuesday,Cheerleaders of Faith,Tell His Story

Wednesday:

SavvySouthernStyle, Posed Perfection, A Wise Woman Builds Her Home, Woman to Woman Word Filled Wednesdays, ChristianBloggerLinkup, Mom’s Morning Coffee, Women with Intention, Coffee for Your Heart, MessyMarriage, ThreeWordWednesday

Thursday:

ShareYourStyle, ImpartingGrace, EmbracingChange, HaveADailyCupOfMrsOlson, MyRepurposedLife,ADelightsomeLife, KatherinesCorner,  I Choose Joy,   Thought Provoking Thursday, SincerelyPaulas,ThankfulThursdays, ThoughtfulThursday

Friday:

FrenchCountryCottage, TheCharmOfHome, RootedInThyme,  TheDedicatedHouseAnythingBlueFriday,ShabbyliciousFriday, Sweet Inspiration,  Faith’nFriends, Missional Women Faith Filled Fridays, Dance With Jesus FreshMarketFriday

Saturday:

FunkyJunkInteriors, OneMoreTimeEvents,  SaturdaySparks, TheInspirationGallery, Make My Saturday Sweet

 

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